Malawi was always going to be a country that was full of relaxation along the shore of Lake Malawi, upon beautiful sandy beaches and ultra clear water. It does seem that everything in Africa is grouped together in back to back countries, which does mean you end up getting a bit fed up of the same thing. After all it was only a few days ago that we were sat on the beaches of the Indian Ocean.

Malawi like most African countries is vastly populated and this can be seen with most women of child bearing age having a baby strapped to their backs, their other children are independent from the time they can walk. Little groups of kids aged two to four walk around amusing themselves all day, normally only a few hundred meters from a home. There doesn’t ever seem to be any interaction or stimulation given by adults, which is why you get such a fantastic reaction when you wave or play with them.

Our first spot for camping was not what our minds had painted of the lake but we at least could relax and fiddle about with a few car related issues. Our combination lock on the back door lost its handle and because Steve was relaxing too much and didn’t fix it, we then lost the rest of it the following day. The northern part of Malawi rises sharply up from the lake and this meant we had an entertaining hour climbing up a rocky cliff face, scrabbling around hairpin after hairpin. Of course none of this taxes Gweneveer, in fact it is when we travel on rubbish roads that she feels strong and sprightly. Once we reached the summit we entered the little town of Livingstonia, where a mission was setup around a century ago. The town was a huge surprise, with brick buildings everywhere and homes even had flower pots on their walls. We continued until we reached the mission and went inside for a cup of tea. Now if the place was built over one hundred years ago, it hadn’t changed a bit. The furniture, décor and feel were something out of the history books and even had the place mats our grandparents had.

Feeling refreshed we made our way along the top of the escarpment along more dirt tracks, through villages full of incredibly friendly and wavy people. Even our mid morning snacks at a little market turned out to be really tasty. To our surprise the village, no more than a dozen tiny shops even sported a chip shop, which was up and running serving locals fresh chips at 10:30 in the morning, not something our stomachs fancied. Some of the children were less happy to see us, one bursting into tears at the sight of white people coming to buy fruit, screaming for her mummy. Even after all these months we are still taken back at times at how much we are stared at for being white and the horror or curiosity in young kids faces when they see us. Normally a friendly smile and enthusiastic wave breaks down most barriers.

We finally pulled into camp in the Nyika National Park close to dusk and the second we climbed out the car we realised that being high up in the hills is actually pretty cold; however hospitality was there in the form of a local scout who built a fire to keep us warm. He made lot shorter work at doing this than we did trying to decide where to park on the severely uneven ground. Thankfully we had braced ourselves for the park being there for more scenery than animals, which was good as the following day as we drove round the park we saw very little. The highlight was seeing a Serval (another type of cat) but the second we appeared he leapt up and headed for a group of trees for cover. This was frustrating so with Nyika NP being somewhere you can happily walk about we all jumped out (still with the Dutch) and went traipsing over the bracken to get another view. It wasn’t until after ten minutes of looking, surrounded by shrubs and grass up to our waste that it dawned on us we were trying to chase a predator and sloped back to the car having failed to find him again. The scenery is stunning and in places is similar to the grandness of rolling hills found in Scotland and Wales, not something you expect to find in ‘The Heart Of Africa’ as Malawi is known.

Unfortunately during our days adventure seeing only a dozen animals, but driving for 50km, we found out one of our rear Shock Absorbers had fallen apart (welding broke). Stuck in the middle of a National Park doesn’t give you many options, especially when you are 180km from the nearest town. Limping back to camp we had a decision to make on which route we took out of the park. We could have gone the easy main track way, instead we were determined to not let it disrupt our plans and took the ‘4x4 Only’ way back. Gweneveer soldiered on magnificently and we ended up taking about 4/5 hours crawling along a track that was fairly simple, were it not for the dozens of trees blocking our way. Armed with axes and strong arms (well Katie) we took a tree at a time and cleared the path for us to continue. The damage had clearly been made by elephants as the poo clearly showed, but the only elephant we saw was Katie as she hauled branches out the way for us to drive on past. Being over excited about rough and tough work did mean that she got carried away charging in front of the car trying to find the next tree to man handle and that night was nursing sore bits.

After two countries without a garage, we were back again. This time it was a simple welding job. Leaving them to it we put our feet up and opened our books. However as the day started to get going it was fascinating to see a pair of eight year old girls set up a peanut and doughnut stall opposite the garage. Of course this was a school day, but they clearly did not go, instead each day seemed to be spent playing jump rope and selling nibbles to other children.

The downside of needing repairs meant we had to stay in a rubbish town, and an even worse campsite. The benefit was we all treated ourselves by going out and having a really nice curry. Very out of place for everything else that was about, but a real treat compared to the normal staying around the Landy for dinner.

With the car repaired and our scouts out in front to find a camp site we relaxed and carried on in that vain for the next few days as we found a quite and really beautiful spot on the lake. With the weather full of sunshine, the lake showed us why people come back again and again. Katie even managed to make friends with the local curio sellers who went to town to collect groceries for us. The fisherman even turned up, making us even lazier as we only had to go 50 meters for some fresh fish. Steve has given up the idea of catching his own fish and opted for the easy way of just buying it. The time over a few days was spent reading, swimming, watching a little DSTV (Sky TV), cooking and playing Monopoly (which Steve won and smiled about for hours).

One of the wonders of travelling is meeting people and not just locals. When we were in Tanzania we came across Geoff and Liz, a wonderful couple from the UK. After just a few minutes of chatting they invited us to their charity head quarters, half way down Lake Malawi, to see what they do and simply have fun. We were unsure at first about calling in but by god are we glad we did. ‘Ripple Africa’ is a wonderful charity that supports education, the community and environmental concerns in the immediate vicinity. The welcome from everybody was tremendously friendly and once settled in to the guest lodge we were taken on a walk to see some of the projects that they have implemented, and they have a lot of them. This included a very charismatic guy that is in charge of the Library and was getting a micro loan to build a new house, as currently he and his family of sixteen were living in a straw shack and a roofless building. The charity is run like a business with many locals employed by the charity, but they do have areas that bring further income into the charity, such as Imbowler’s (small clay stoves) and enhanced fruit trees that they sell.

The charity also has a number of volunteers who we ended up spending several nights with laughing and joking. I think they must be the luckiest volunteers in Africa as their cabins overlook the lake and the spot is by far the most picturesque of any of the great African lakes. The second day started with an early morning swim with Geoff to see the sunrise, however we weren’t quite early enough to see it creep out of the lake, we should have been there at 5am instead of 5:30am! It truly is a wonderful way to start a day in Africa; so much so we did it again the following day with all the volunteers roped in as well but this time we made it up early. We spent one of our mornings walking up to the small library that has a better collection than most African bookshops and then further into the village centre. We ended up getting a chaperone, Whyman, who took us to the shops we needed and then on a little tour to show us the various things that locals did. However walking into the pub at 11:30 to a crowded load of drunk locals was a bit odd, especially as two of them were dancing (not forgetting only men go into pubs in Africa!). We repaid our thanks to Whyman by giving him a go at snorkelling in the lake, to much amusement.

After spending about an hour saying goodbye to people we had only just met, with them all being amazingly genuine about wanting us to stay, we headed a little further south to another lodge. It wasn’t to be the end of our time with Ripple Africa though as Geoff, Liz and the troop of volunteers had a night away to the same lodge, making for a drunken evening of pizza. Having built a massive scepticism about charity’s and their benefit in Africa it was uplifting to see one that seems to be doing things that are both good and sustainable.

Our next stop was a full day’s drive away, on the southern tip of the lake at Cape McClear, an area renowned as being a stunning spot where you can happily snorkel and see a large variety of fish. However the southern part of Lake Malawi, like most rivers and lakes in Africa is polluted by a parasite called Bilharzias. Therefore why people want to go swimming in the water I don’t know and meant we didn’t take the risk to do anything water based. Whether this was the reason we didn’t really like the area, which consisted of a rubbish beach surrounded by an equally dirty village, we don’t know but almost wished we had skipped it.

Having loved the emptiness of the previous national park we headed for Liwonde National Park, this one being more animal orientated than Nyika. We currently have a mammal book that we are a bit nerdy about and when we see a new type of antelope or any animal we get excited and out comes the stickers to mark it off. In fact although we didn’t see much on the drive to the camp, we did see a few new ones which made it worthwhile straight away. The benefit of the parks not being stupidly expensive meant you don’t feel pressured to race around on game drives. Instead we sat by the riverside watching hippos, crocs and the occasional elephant that appeared on the opposite bank. After a few drinks in the bar it was time to be escorted back to our tent. Now this wasn’t because we had too much but more to protect us from animals as the camp has no fences. We realised the importance of this as just before we set off an elephant appeared in the area just outside the bar. That night we woke to hear branches of a nearby tree being broken, by what could only have been another elephant. As with most wild campsites in Africa we woke to join a war, us against the baboons, just trying to keep them away so we could have our cereal.

We had been rejoined by Roy and Sandy and ventured out for a morning drive before leaving the park. It turned out that the previous days rains were to be our downfall and it had made the more remote tracks muddy and too boggy in places. This finally gave Gweneveer the revenge she has been seeking since Sudan as Roy got stuck in some nice sticky mud. Minutes later and under the watchful eye of the camera for evidence they were towed to freedom, but not before both the Land Cruiser and Roy were covered in mud. On the way out of the park we came across a herd of Elephants, nineteen in total that crossed the road just in front of us. Finding a key spot we thought we would be fine sitting quietly and watching, but with the park being little visited, a few took a dislike to us and made an attempted charge, nothing too serious but enough to think it was time to move on.

As you travel about and in particular the more remote areas you end up seeing some very unusual foods being sold on the side of the road. In one area on the way towards the capital we came across some kids holding up kebabs. In fact after seeing the fourth person we realised they were actually skewers of cooked mice (whole). Understandably we passed up that tasty delicacy and went to the opposite end of the scale and stopped at Dedza Pottery. This could have easily been plucked from England, it had a large country building that acted as the pottery factory, making solid crockery to terracotta plant pots, surrounded by other converted farm buildings. The favourite being the restaurant that we managed to get a stunning quiche and even some cheesecake (baked, but with real cream). For the first time in ages we really missed the ease of getting good food at home.

Lilongwe is a tiny little town with not a lot in it. You really would be forgiven if you didn’t realise it was the capital of the country. Having been forced to change our plans because of the heavy rains we ended up arriving on the weekend, which meant we had to stay longer than planned to visit another garage. This time just for some wheel wobble, but another garage all the same. This ended up being a great few hours though as the guy running the place was so keen and chatty that he almost made it a pleasure to be there. In fact he left us with the memory that Malawians are really friendly and kind people.